CHAPTER LXIII. Mrs. Clive at Home

Clive and his father did not think fit to conceal their opinions regarding their kinsman, Barnes Newcome, and uttered them in many public places when Sir Barnes's conduct was brought into question, we may be sure that their talk came to the Baronet's ears, and did not improve his already angry feeling towards those gentlemen. For a while they had the best of the attack. The Colonel routed Barnes out of his accustomed club at Bays's; where also the gallant Sir George Tufto expressed himself pretty openly with respect to the poor Baronet's want of courage: the Colonel had bullied and browbeaten Barnes in the parlour of his own bank, and the story was naturally well known in the City; where it certainly was not pleasant for Sir Barnes, as he walked to 'Change, to meet sometimes the scowls of the angry man of war, his uncle, striding down to the offices of the Bundelcund Bank, and armed with that terrible bamboo cane.

But though his wife had undeniably run away after notorious ill-treatment from her husband; though he had shown two white feathers in those unpleasant little affairs with his uncle and cousin; though Sir Barnes Newcome was certainly neither amiable nor popular in the City of London, his reputation as a most intelligent man of business still stood; the credit of his house was deservedly high, and people banked with him, and traded with him, in spite of faithless wives and hostile colonels.

When the outbreak between Colonel Newcome and his nephew took place, it may be remembered that Mr. Hobson Newcome, the other partner of the firm of Hobson Brothers, waited upon Colonel Newcome, as one of the principal English directors of the B. B. C., and hoped that although private differences would, of course, oblige Thomas Newcome to cease all personal dealings with the bank of Hobson, the affairs of the Company in which he was interested ought not to suffer on this account; and that the Indian firm should continue dealing with Hobsons on the same footing as before. Mr. Hobson Newcome represented to the Colonel, in his jolly frank way, that whatever happened between the latter and his nephew Barnes, Thomas Newcome had still one friend in the house; that the transactions between it and the Indian Company were mutually advantageous; finally, that the manager of the Indian bank might continue to do business with Hobsons as before. So the B. B. C. sent its consignments to Hobson Brothers, and drew its bills, which were duly honoured by that firm.

More than one of Colonel Newcome's City acquaintances, among them his agent, Mr. Jolly, and his ingenuous friend, Mr. Sherrick, especially, hinted to Thomas Newcome to be very cautious in his dealings with Hobson Brothers, and keep a special care lest that house should play him an evil turn. They both told him that Barnes Newcome had said more than once, in answer to reports of the Colonel's own speeches against Barnes. "I know that hot-headed, blundering Indian uncle of mine is furious against me, on account of an absurd private affair and misunderstanding, which he is too obstinate to see in the proper light. What is my return for the abuse and rant which he lavishes against me? I cannot forget that he is my grandfather's son, an old man, utterly ignorant both of society and business here; and as he is interested in this Indian Banking Company, which must be preciously conducted when it appointed him as the guardian and overseer of its affairs in England, I do my very best to serve the Company, and I can tell you, its blundering, muddleheaded managers, black and white, owe no little to the assistance which they have had from our house. If they don't like us, why do they go on dealing with us? We don't want them and their bills. We were a leading house fifty years before they were born, and shall continue to be so long after they come to an end." Such was Barnes's case, as stated by himself. It was not a very bad one, or very unfairly stated, considering the advocate. I believe he has always persisted in thinking that he never did his uncle any wrong.

Mr. Jolly and Mr. Sherrick, then, both entreated Thomas Newcome to use his best endeavours, and bring the connexion of the B. B. C. and Hobson Brothers to a speedy end. But Jolly was an interested party; he and his friends would have had the agency of the B. B. C., and the profits thereof, which Hobsons had taken from them. Mr. Sherrick was an outside practitioner, a guerilla amongst regular merchants. The opinions of one and the other, though submitted by Thomas Newcome duly to his co-partners, the managers and London board of directors of the Bundelcund Banking Company, were overruled by that assembly.

They had their establishment and apartments in the City; they had their clerks and messengers, their managers' room and board-room, their meetings, where no doubt great quantities of letters were read, vast ledgers produced; where Tom Newcome was voted into the chair, and voted out with thanks; where speeches were made, and the affairs of the B. B. C. properly discussed. These subjects are mysterious, terrifying, unknown to me. I cannot pretend to describe them. Fred Bayham, I remember, used to be great in his knowledge of the affairs of the Bundelcund Banking Company. He talked of cotton, wool, copper, opium, indigo, Singapore, Manilla, China, Calcutta, Australia, with prodigious eloquence and fluency. His conversation was about millions. The most astounding paragraphs used to appear in the Pall Mall Gazette, regarding the annual dinner at Blackwall, which the directors gave, and to which he, and George, and I, as friends of the court, were invited. What orations were uttered, what flowing bumpers emptied in the praise of this great Company; what quantities of turtle and punch did Fred devour at its expense! Colonel Newcome was the kindly old chairman at these banquets; the prince, his son, taking but a modest part in the ceremonies, and sitting with us, his old cronies.

All the gentlemen connected with the board, all those with whom the B. B. C. traded in London, paid Thomas Newcome extraordinary respect. His character for wealth was deservedly great, and of course multiplied by the tongue of Rumour. F. B. knew to a few millions of rupees, more or less, what the Colonel possessed, and what Clive would inherit. Thomas Newcome's distinguished military services, his high bearing, lofty courtesy, simple but touching garrulity;—for the honest man talked much more now than he had been accustomed to do in former days, and was not insensible to the flattery which his wealth brought him,—his reputation as a keen man of business, who had made his own fortune by operations equally prudent and spirited, and who might make the fortunes of hundreds of other people, brought the worthy Colonel a number of friends, and I promise you that the loudest huzzahs greeted his health when it was proposed at the Blackwall dinners. At the second annual dinner after Clive's marriage some friends presented Mrs. Clive Newcome with a fine testimonial. There was a superb silver cocoa-nut tree, whereof the leaves were dexterously arranged for holding candle and pickles; under the cocoa-nut was an Indian prince on a camel, giving his hand to a cavalry officer on horseback—a howitzer, a plough, a loom, a bale of cotton, on which were the East India Company's arms, a Brahmin, Britannia, and Commerce with a cornucopia were grouped round the principal figures: and if you would see a noble account of this chaste and elegant specimen of British art, you are referred to the pages of the Pall Mall Gazette of that year, as well as to Fred Bayham's noble speech in the course of the evening, when it was exhibited. The East and its wars, and its heroes, Assaye and Seringapatam ("and Lord Lake and Laswaree too," calls out the Colonel greatly elated), tiger-hunting, palanquins, Juggernaut, elephants, the burning of widows—all passed before us in F. B.'s splendid oration. He spoke of the product of the Indian forest, the palm-tree, the cocoa-nut tree, the banyan-tree. Palms the Colonel had already brought back with him, the palms of valour, won in the field of war (cheers). Cocoa-nut trees he had never seen, though he had heard wonders related regarding the milky contents of their fruit. Here at any rate was one tree of the kind, under the branches of which he humbly trusted often to repose—and, if he might be so bold as to carry on the Eastern metaphor, he would say, knowing the excellence of the Colonel's claret and the splendour of his hospitality, that he would prefer a cocoa-nut day at the Colonel's to a banyan day anywhere else. Whilst F. B.'s speech went on, I remember J. J. eyeing the trophy, and the queer expression of his shrewd face. The health of British Artists was drunk a propos of this splendid specimen of their skill, and poor J. J. Ridley, Esq., A.R.A., had scarce a word to say in return. He and Clive sat by one another, the latter very silent and gloomy. When J. J. and I met in the world, we talked about our friend, and it was easy for both of us to see that neither was satisfied with Clive's condition.

The fine house in Tyburnia was completed by this time, as gorgeous as money could make it. How different it was from the old Fitzroy Square mansion with its ramshackle furniture, and spoils of brokers' shops, and Tottenham Court Road odds and ends! An Oxford Street upholsterer had been let loose in the yet virgin chambers; and that inventive genius had decorated them with all the wonders his fancy could devise. Roses and cupids quivered on the ceilings, up to which golden arabesques crawled from the walls; your face (handsome or otherwise) was reflected by countless looking-glasses, so multiplied and arranged as, as it were, to carry you into the next street. You trod on velvet, pausing with respect in the centre of the carpet, where Rosey's cypher was worked in the sweet flowers which bear her name. What delightful crooked legs the chairs had! What corner cupboards there were filled with Dresden gimcracks, which it was a part of this little woman's business in life to purchase! What etageres, and bonbonnieres, and chiffonnieres! What awfully bad pastels there were on the walls! What frightful Boucher and Lancret shepherds and shepherdesses leered over the portieres! What velvet-bound volumes, mother-of-pearl albums, inkstands representing beasts of the field, prie-dieu chairs, and wonderful knick-knacks I can recollect! There was the most magnificent piano, though Rosey seldom sang any of her six songs now; and when she kept her couch at a certain most interesting period, the good Colonel, ever anxious to procure amusement for his darling, asked whether she would not like a barrel-organ grinding fifty or sixty favourite pieces, which a bearer could turn? And he mentioned how Windus, of their regiment, who loved music exceedingly, had a very fine instrument of this kind out to Barrackpore in the year 1810, and relays of barrels by each ship with all the new tunes from Europe. The Testimonial took its place in the centre of Mrs. Clive's table, surrounded by satellites of plate. The delectable parties were constantly gathered together, the grand barouche rolling in the Park, or stopping at the principal shops. Little Rosey bloomed in millinery, and was still the smiling little pet of her father-in-law, and poor Clive, in the midst of all these splendours, was gaunt, and sad, and silent; listless at most times, bitter and savage at others, pleased only when he was out of the society which bored him, and in the company of George and J. J., the simple friends of his youth.

His careworn look and altered appearance mollified my wife towards him—who had almost taken him again into favour. But she did not care for Mrs. Clive, and the Colonel, somehow, grew cool towards us, and to look askance upon the little band of Clive's friends. It seemed as if there were two parties in the house. There was Clive's set—J. J., the shrewd, silent little painter; Warrington, the cynic; and the author of the present biography, who was, I believe, supposed to give himself contemptuous airs; and to have become very high and mighty since his marriage. Then there was the great, numerous, and eminently respectable set, whose names were all registered in little Rosey's little visiting-book, and to whose houses she drove round, duly delivering the cards of Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome, and Colonel Newcome;—the generals and colonels, the judges and the fogies. The only man who kept well with both sides of the house was F. Bayham, Esq., who, having got into clover, remained in the enjoyment of that welcome pasture; who really loved Clive and the Colonel too, and had a hundred pleasant things and funny stories (the droll old creature!) to tell to the little lady for whom we others could scarcely find a word. The old friends of the student-days were not forgotten, but they did not seem to get on in the new house. The Miss Gandishes came to one of Mrs. Clive's balls, still in blue crape, still with ringlets on their wizened old foreheads, accompanying papa, with his shirt-collars turned down—who gazed in mute wonder on the splendid scene. Warrington actually asked Miss Gandish to dance, making woeful blunders, however, in the quadrille, while Clive, with something like one of his old smiles on his face, took out Miss Zoe Gandish, her sister. We made Gandish overeat and overdrink himself in the supper-room, and Clive cheered him by ordering a full length of Mrs. Clive Newcome from his distinguished pencil. Never was seen a grander exhibition of white satin and jewels. Smee, R.A., was furious at the preference shown to his rival.

We had Sandy M'Collop, too, at the party, who had returned from Rome, with his red beard, and his picture of the murder of the Red Comyn, which made but a dim effect in the Octagon Room of the Royal Academy, where the bleeding agonies of the dying warrior were veiled in an unkind twilight. On Sandy and his brethren little Rosey looked rather coldly. She tossed up her little head in conversation with me, and gave me to understand that this party was only an omnium gatherum, not one of the select parties, from which Heaven defend us. "We are Poins, and Nym, and Pistol," growled out George Warrington, as he strode away to finish the evening in Clive's painting- and smoking-room. "Now Prince Hal is married, and shares the paternal throne, his Princess is ashamed of his brigand associates of former days." She came and looked at us with a feeble little smile, as we sat smoking, and let the daylight in on us from the open door, and hinted to Mr. Clive that it was time to go to bed.

So Clive Newcome lay in a bed of down and tossed and tumbled there. He went to fine dinners, and sat silent over them; rode fine horses, and black Care jumped up behind the moody horseman. He was cut off in a great measure from the friends of his youth, or saw them by a kind of stealth and sufferance; was a very lonely, poor fellow, I am afraid, now that people were testimonialising his wife, and many an old comrade growling at his haughtiness and prosperity.

In former days, when his good father recognised the difference which fate, and time, and temper, had set between him and his son, we have seen with what a gentle acquiescence the old man submitted to his inevitable fortune, and how humbly he bore that stroke of separation which afflicted the boy lightly enough, but caused the loving sire so much pain. Then there was no bitterness between them, in spite of the fatal division; but now, it seemed as if there was anger on Thomas Newcome's part, because, though come together again, they were not united, though with every outward appliance of happiness Clive was not happy. What young man on earth could look for more? a sweet young wife, a handsome home, of which the only encumbrance was an old father, who would give his last drop of blood in his son's behalf. And it was to bring about this end that Thomas Newcome had toiled and had amassed a fortune. Could not Clive, with his talents and education, go down once or twice a week to the City and take a decent part in the business by which his wealth was secured? He appeared at the various board-rooms and City conclaves, yawned at the meetings, and drew figures on the blotting-paper of the Company; had no interest in its transactions, no heart in its affairs; went away and galloped his horse alone; or returned to his painting-room, put on his old velvet jacket, and worked with his palettes and brushes. Palettes and brushes! Could he not give up these toys when he was called to a much higher station in the world? Could he not go talk with Rosey;—drive with Rosey, kind little soul, whose whole desire was to make him happy? Such thoughts as these, no doubt, darkened the Colonel's mind, and deepened the furrows round his old eyes. So it is, we judge men by our own standards; judge our nearest and dearest often wrong.

Many and many a time did Clive try and talk with the little Rosey, who chirped and prattled so gaily to his father. Many a time would she come and sit by his easel, and try her little powers to charm him, bring him little tales about their acquaintances, stories about this ball and that concert, practise artless smiles upon him, gentle little bouderies, tears, perhaps, followed by caresses and reconciliation. At the end of which he would return to his cigar; and she, with a sigh and a heavy heart, to the good old man who had bidden her to go and talk with him. He used to feel that his father had sent her; the thought came across him in their conversations, and straightway his heart would shut up and his face grew gloomy. They were not made to mate with one another. This was the truth; the shoe was a very pretty little shoe, but Clive's foot was too big for it.

Just before the testimonial, Mr. Clive was in constant attendance at home, and very careful and kind and happy with his wife, and the whole family party went very agreeably. Doctors were in constant attendance at Mrs. Clive Newcome's door; prodigious care was taken by the good Colonel in wrapping her and in putting her little feet on sofas, and in leading her to her carriage. The Campaigner came over in immense flurry from Edinburgh (where Uncle James was now very comfortably lodged in Picardy Place with the most agreeable society round about him), and all this circle was in a word very close and happy and intimate; but woe is me, Thomas Newcome's fondest hopes were disappointed this time: his little grandson lived but to see the light and leave it: and sadly, sadly, those preparations were put away, those poor little robes and caps, those delicate muslins and cambrics over which many a care had been forgotten, many a fond prayer thought, if not uttered. Poor little Rosey! she felt the grief very keenly; but she rallied from it very soon. In a very few months, her cheeks were blooming and dimpling with smiles again, and she was telling us how her party was an omnium gatherum.

The Campaigner had ere this returned to the scene of her northern exploits; not, I believe, entirely of the worthy woman's own free will. Assuming the command of the household, whilst her daughter kept her sofa, Mrs. Mackenzie had set that establishment into uproar and mutiny. She had offended the butler, outraged the housekeeper, wounded the sensibilities of the footmen, insulted the doctor, and trampled on the inmost corns of the nurse. It was surprising what a change appeared in the Campaigner's conduct, and how little, in former days, Colonel Newcome had known her. What the Emperor Napoleon the First said respecting our Russian enemies, might be applied to this lady, Grattez-la, and she appeared a Tartar. Clive and his father had a little comfort and conversation in conspiring against her. The old man never dared to try, but was pleased with the younger's spirit and gallantry in the series of final actions which, commencing over poor little Rosey's prostrate body in the dressing-room, were continued in the drawing-room, resumed with terrible vigour on the enemy's part in the dining-room, and ended, to the triumph of the whole establishment, at the outside of the hall-door.

When the routed Tartar force had fled back to its native north, Rosey made a confession, which Clive told me afterwards, bursting with bitter laughter. "You and papa seem to be very much agitated," she said. (Rosey called the Colonel papa in the absence of the Campaigner.) "I do not mind it a bit, except just at first, when it made me a little nervous. Mamma used always to be so; she used to scold and scold all day, both me and Josey, in Scotland, till grandmamma sent her away; and then in Fitzroy Square, and then in Brussels, she used to box my ears, and go into such tantrums; and I think," adds Rosey, with one of her sweetest smiles, "she had quarrelled with Uncle James before she came to us."

"She used to box Rosey's ears," roars out poor Clive, "and go into such tantrums, in Fitzroy Square and Brussels afterwards, and the pair would come down with their arms round each other's waists, smirking and smiling as if they had done nothing but kiss each other all their mortal lives! This is what we know about women—this is what we get, and find years afterwards, when we think we have married a smiling, artless young creature! Are you all such hypocrites, Mrs. Pendennis?" and he pulled his mustachios in his wrath.

"Poor Clive!" says Laura, very kindly. "You would not have had her tell tales of her mother, would you?"

"Oh, of course not," breaks out Clive; "that is what you all say, and so you are hypocrites out of sheer virtue."

It was the first time Laura had called him Clive for many a day. She was becoming reconciled to him. We had our own opinion about the young fellow's marriage.

And, to sum up all, upon a casual rencontre with the young gentleman in question, whom we saw descending from a hansom at the steps of the Flag, Pall Mall, I opined that dark thoughts of Hoby had entered into Clive Newcome's mind. Othello-like, he scowled after that unconscious Cassio as the other passed into the club in his lacquered boots.



CHAPTER LXIV. Absit Omen

At the first of the Blackwall festivals, Hobson Newcome was present, in spite of the quarrel which had taken place between his elder brother and the chief of the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome. But it was the individual Barnes and the individual Thomas who had had a difference together; the Bundelcund Bank was not at variance with its chief house of commission in London; no man drank prosperity to the B. B. C., upon occasion of this festival, with greater fervour than Hobson Newcome, and the manner in which he just slightly alluded, in his own little speech of thanks, to the notorious differences between Colonel Newcome and his nephew, praying that these might cease some day, and, meanwhile, that the confidence between the great Indian establishment and its London agents might never diminish, was appreciated and admired by six-and-thirty gentlemen, all brimful of claret and enthusiasm, and in that happy state of mind in which men appreciate and admire everything.

At the second dinner, when the testimonial was presented, Hobson was not present. Nor did his name figure amongst those engraven on the trunk of Mr. Newcome's allegorical silver cocoa-nut tree. As we travelled homewards in the omnibus, Fred Bayham noticed the circumstance to me. "I have looked over the list of names," says he, "not merely that on the trunk, sir, but the printed list; it was rolled up and placed in one of the nests on the top of the tree. Why is Hobson's name not there?—Ha! it mislikes me, Pendennis."

F. B., who was now very great about City affairs, discoursed about stocks and companies with immense learning, and gave me to understand that he had transacted one or two little operations in Capel Court on his own account, with great present, and still larger prospective, advantages to himself. It is a fact that Mr. Ridley was paid, and that F. B.'s costume, though still eccentric, was comfortable, cleanly, and variegated. He occupied the apartments once tenanted by the amiable Honeyman. He lived in ease and comfort there. "You don't suppose," says he, "that the wretched stipend I draw from the Pall Mall Gazette enables me to maintain this kind of thing? F. B., sir, has a station in the world; F. B. moves among moneyers and City nobs, and eats cabobs with wealthy nabobs. He may marry, sir, and settle in life." We cordially wished every worldly prosperity to the brave F. B.

Happening to descry him one day in the Park, I remarked that his countenance wore an ominous and tragic appearance, which seemed to deepen as he neared me. I thought he had been toying affably with a nursery-maid the moment before, who stood with some of her little charges watching the yachts upon the Serpentine. Howbeit, espying my approach, F. B. strode away from the maiden and her innocent companions, and advanced to greet his old acquaintance, enveloping his face with shades of funereal gloom.

"Yon were the children of my good friend Colonel Huckaback of the Bombay Marines! Alas! unconscious of their doom, the little infants play. I was watching them at their sports. There is a pleasing young woman in attendance upon the poor children. They were sailing their little boats upon the Serpentine; racing and laughing, and making merry; and as I looked on, Master Hastings Huckaback's boat went down! Absit omen, Pendennis! I was moved by the circumstance. F. B. hopes that the child's father's argosy may not meet with shipwreck!"

"You mean the little yellow-faced man whom we met at Colonel Newcome's?" says Mr. Pendennis.

"I do, sir," growled F. B. "You know that he is a brother director with our Colonel in the Bundelcund Bank?"

"Gracious Heavens!" I cried, in sincere anxiety, "nothin has happened, I hope, to the Bundelcund Bank?"

"No," answers the other, "nothing has happened, the good ship is safe, sir, as yet. But she has narrowly escaped a great danger, Pendennis," cries F. B., gripping my arm with great energy, "there was a traitor in her crew—she has weathered the storm nobly—who would have sent her on the rocks, sir, who would have scuttled her at midnight."

"Pray drop your nautical metaphors, and tell me what you mean," cries F. B.'s companion, and Bayham continued his narration.

"Were you in the least conversant with City affairs," he said, "or did you deign to visit the spot where merchants mostly congregate, you would have heard the story, which was over the whole City yesterday, and spread dismay from Threadneedle Street to Leadenhall. The story is, that the firm of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, yesterday refused acceptance of thirty thousand pounds' worth of bills of the Bundelcund Banking Company of India.

"The news came like a thunderclap upon the London Board of Directors, who had received no notice of the intentions of Hobson Brothers, and caused a dreadful panic amongst the shareholders of the concern. The board-room was besieged by colonels and captains, widows and orphans; within an hour after protest of bills were taken up, and you will see, in the City article of the Globe this very evening, an announcement that henceforward the house of Baines and Jolly, of Job Court, will meet engagements of the Bundelcund Banking Company of India, being provided with ample funds to do honour to every possible liability of that Company. But the shares fell, sir, in consequence of the panic. I hope they will rally. I trust and believe they will rally. For our good Colonel's sake and that of his friends, for the sake of the innocent children sporting by the Serpentine yonder.

"I had my suspicions when they gave that testimonial," said F. B. "In my experience of life, sir, I always feel rather shy about testimonials, and when a party gets one, somehow look out to hear of his smashing the next month. Absit omen! I will say again. I like not the going down of yonder little yacht."

The Globe sure enough contained a paragraph that evening announcing the occurrence which Mr. Bayham had described, and the temporary panic which it had occasioned, and containing an advertisement stating that Messrs. Baines and Jolly would henceforth act as agents of the Indian Company. Legal proceedings were presently threatened by the solicitors of the Company against the banking firm which had caused so much mischief. Mr. Hobson Newcome was absent abroad when the circumstance took place, and it was known that the protest of the bills was solely attributable to his nephew and partner. But after the break between the two firms, there was a rupture between Hobson's family and Colonel Newcome. The exasperated Colonel vowed that his brother and his nephew were traitors alike, and would have no further dealings with one or the other. Even poor innocent Sam Newcome, coming up to London from Oxford, where he had been plucked, and offering a hand to Clive, was frowned away by our Colonel, who spoke in terms of great displeasure to his son for taking the least notice of the young traitor.

Our Colonel was changed, changed in his heart, changed in his whole demeanour towards the world, and above all towards his son, for whom he had made so many kind sacrifices in his old days. We have said how, ever since Clive's marriage, a tacit strife had been growing up between father and son. The boy's evident unhappiness was like a reproach to his father. His very silence angered the old man. His want of confidence daily chafed and annoyed him. At the head of a large fortune, which he rightly persisted in spending, he felt angry with himself because he could not enjoy it, angry with his son, who should have helped him in the administration of his new estate, and who was but a listless, useless member of the little confederacy, a living protest against all the schemes of the good man's past life. The catastrophe in the City again brought father and son together somewhat, and the vindictiveness of both was roused by Barnes's treason. Time was when the Colonel himself would have viewed his kinsman more charitably, but fate and circumstance had angered that originally friendly and gentle disposition; hate and suspicion had mastered him, and if it cannot be said that his new life had changed him, at least it had brought out faults for which there had hitherto been no occasion, and qualities latent before. Do we know ourselves, or what good or evil circumstance may bring from us? Did Cain know, as he and his younger brother played round their mother's knee, that the little hand which caressed Abel should one day grow larger, and seize a brand to slay him? Thrice fortunate he, to whom circumstance is made easy: whom fate visits with gentle trial, and kindly Heaven keeps out of temptation.

In the stage which the family feud now reached, and which the biographer of the Newcomes is bound to describe, there is one gentle moralist who gives her sentence decidedly against Clive's father; whilst on the other hand a rough philosopher and friend of mine, whose opinions used to have some weight with me, stoutly declares that they were right. "War and justice are good things," says George Warrington, rattling his clenched fist on the table. "I maintain them, and the common sense of the world maintains them, against the preaching of all the Honeymans that ever puled from the pulpit. I have not the least objection in life to a rogue being hung. When a scoundrel is whipped I am pleased, and say, serve him right. If any gentleman will horsewhip Sir Barnes Newcome, Baronet, I shall not be shocked, but, on the contrary, go home and order an extra mutton-chop for dinner."

"Ah! revenge is wrong, Pen," pleads the other counsellor.

"Let alone that the wisest and best of all Judges has condemned it. It blackens the hearts of men. It distorts their views of right. It sets them to devise evil. It causes them to think unjustly of others. It is not the noblest return for injury, not even the bravest way of meeting it. The greatest courage is to bear persecution, not to answer when you are reviled, and when wrong has been done you to forgive. I am sorry for what you call the Colonel's triumph and his enemy's humiliation. Let Barnes be as odious as you will, he ought never to have humiliated Ethel's brother; but he is weak. Other gentlemen as well are weak, Mr. Pen, although you are so much cleverer than women. I have no patience with the Colonel, and I beg you to tell him, whether he asks you or not that he has lost my good graces, and that I for one will not huzzah at what his friends and flatterers call his triumphs, and that I don't think in this instance he has acted like the dear Colonel, and the good Colonel, and the good Christian that I once thought him."

We must now tell what the Colonel and Clive had been doing, and what caused two such different opinions respecting their conduct from the two critics just named. The refusal of the London Banking House to accept the bills of the Great Indian Company of course affected very much the credit of that Company in this country. Sedative announcements were issued by the Directors in London; brilliant accounts of the Company's affairs abroad were published; proof incontrovertible was given that the B. B. C. was never in so flourishing a state as at that time when Hobson Brothers had refused its drafts; there could be no question that the Company had received a severe wound and was deeply if not vitally injured by the conduct of the London firm.

The propensity to sell out became quite epidemic amongst the shareholders. Everybody was anxious to realise. Why, out of the thirty names inscribed on poor Mrs. Clive's cocoa-nut tree no less than twenty deserters might be mentioned, or at least who would desert could they find an opportunity of doing so with arms and baggage. Wrathfully the good Colonel scratched the names of those faithless ones out of his daughter's visiting-book: haughtily he met them in the street; to desert the B. B. C. at the hour of peril was, in his idea, like applying for leave of absence on the eve of an action. He would not see that the question was not one of sentiment at all, but of chances and arithmetic; he would not hear with patience of men quitting the ship, as he called it. "They may go, sir," says he, "but let them never more be officers of mine." With scorn and indignation he paid off one or two timid friends, who were anxious to fly, and purchased their shares out of his own pocket. But his purse was not long enough for this kind of amusement. What money he had was invested in the Company already, and his name further pledged for meeting the engagements from which their late London bankers had withdrawn.

Those gentlemen, in the meanwhile, spoke of their differences with the Indian Bank as quite natural, and laughed at the absurd charges of personal hostility which poor Thomas Newcome publicly preferred. "Here is a hot-headed old Indian dragoon," says Sir Barnes, "who knows no more about business than I do about cavalry tactics or Hindostanee; who gets into a partnership along with other dragoons and Indian wiseacres, with some uncommonly wily old native practitioners; and they pay great dividends, and they set up a bank. Of course we will do these people's business as long as we are covered, but I have always told their manager that we would run no risks whatever, and close the account the very moment it did not suit us to keep it: and so we parted company six weeks ago, since when there has been a panic in the Company, a panic which has been increased by Colonel Newcome's absurd swagger and folly. He says I am his enemy; enemy indeed! So I am in private life, but what has that to do with business? In business, begad, there are no friends and no enemies at all. I leave all my sentiment on the other side of Temple Bar."

So Thomas Newcome, and Clive the son of Thomas, had wrath in their hearts against Barnes, their kinsman, and desired to be revenged upon him, and were eager after his undoing, and longed for an opportunity when they might meet him and overcome him, and put him to shame.

When men are in this frame of mind, a certain personage is said always to be at hand to help them and give them occasion for indulging in their pretty little passion. What is sheer hate seems to the individual entertaining the sentiment so like indignant virtue, that he often indulges in the propensity to the full, nay, lauds himself for the exercise of it. I am sure if Thomas Newcome in his present desire for retaliation against Barnes, had known the real nature of his sentiments towards that worthy, his conduct would have been different, and we should have heard of no such active hostilities as ensued.



CHAPTER LXV. In which Mrs. Clive comes into her Fortune

Speaking of the affairs of B. B. C., Sir Barnes Newcome always took care to maintain his candid surprise relating to the proceedings of that Company. He set about evil reports against it! He endeavour to do it a wrong—absurd! If a friend were to ask him (and it was quite curious what a number did manage to ask him) whether he thought the Company was an advantageous investment, of course he would give an answer. He could not say conscientiously he thought so—never once had said so—in the time of their connexion, which had been formed solely with a view of obliging his amiable uncle. It was a quarrelsome Company; a dragoon Company; a Company of gentlemen accustomed to gunpowder, and fed on mulligatawny. He, forsooth, be hostile to it! There were some Companies that required no enemies at all, and would be pretty sure to go to the deuce their own way.

Thus, and with this amiable candour, spake Barnes, about a commercial speculation, the merits of which he had a right to canvass as well as any other citizen. As for Uncle Hobson, his conduct was characterised by a timidity which one would scarcely have expected from a gentleman of his florid, jolly countenance, active habits, and generally manly demeanour. He kept away from the cocoa-nut feast, as we have seen: he protested privily to the Colonel that his private goodwill continued undiminished but he was deeply grieved at the B. B. C. affair, which took place while he was on the Continent—confound the Continent, my wife would go—and which was entirely without his cognisance. The Colonel received his brother's excuses, first with awful bows and ceremony, and finally with laughter. "My good Hobson," said he, with the most insufferable kindness, "of course you intended to be friendly; of course the affair was done without your knowledge. We understand that sort of thing. London bankers have no hearts—for these last fifty years past that I have known you and your brother, and my amiable nephew, the present commanding officer, has there been anything in your conduct that has led me to suppose you had?" and herewith Colonel Newcome burst out into a laugh. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. Worthy Hobson took his hat, and walked away, brushing it round and round, and looking very confused. The Colonel strode after him downstairs, and made him an awful bow at the hall door. Never again did Hobson Newcome set foot in that Tyburnian mansion.

During the whole of that season of the testimonial the cocoa-nut figured in an extraordinary number of banquets. The Colonel's hospitalities were more profuse than ever, and Mrs. Clive's toilettes more brilliant. Clive, in his confidential conversations with his friends, was very dismal and gloomy. When I asked City news of our well-informed friend F. B., I am sorry to say, his countenance became funereal. The B. B. C. shares, which had been at an immense premium twelve months since, were now slowly falling, falling.

"I wish," said Mr. Sherrick to me, "the Colonel would realise, even now, like that Mr. Ratray who has just come out of the ship, and brought a hundred thousand pounds with him."

"Come out of the ship! You little know the Colonel, Mr. Sherrick, if you think he will ever do that."

Mr. Ratray, though he had returned to Europe, gave the most cheering accounts of the B. B. C. It was in the most flourishing state. Shares sure to get up again. He had sold out entirely on account of his liver. Must come home—the doctor said so.

Some months afterwards, another director, Mr. Hedges, came home. Both of these gentlemen, as we know, entertained the fashionable world, got seats in Parliament, purchased places in the country, and were greatly respected. Mr. Hedges came out, but his wealthy partner, Mr. M'Gaspey, entered into the B. B. C. The entry of Mr. M'Gaspey into the affairs of the Companyt did not seem to produce very great excitement in England. The shares slowly fell. However, there was a prodigious indigo crop. The London manager was in perfect good-humour. In spite of this and that, of defections, of unpleasantries, of unfavourable whispers, and doubtful friends—Thomas Newcome kept his head high, and his face was always kind and smiling, except when certain family enemies were mentioned, and he frowned like Jove in anger.

We have seen how very fond little Rosey was of her mamma, of her uncle, James Binnie, and now of her papa, as she affectionately styled Thomas Newcome. This affection, I am sure, the two gentlemen returned with all their hearts, and but that they were much too generous and simple-minded to entertain such a feeling. It may be wondered that the two good old boys were not a little jealous of one another. Howbeit it does not appear that they entertained such a feeling; at least it never interrupted the kindly friendship between them, and Clive was regarded in the light of a son by both of them, and each contented himself with his moiety of the smiling little girl's affection.

As long as they were with her, the truth is, little Mrs. Clive was very fond of people, very docile, obedient, easily pleased, brisk, kind, and good-humoured. She charmed her two old friends with little songs, little smiles,—little kind offices, little caresses; and having administered Thomas Newcome's cigar to him in the daintiest, prettiest way, she would trip off to drive with James Binnie, or sit at his dinner, if he was indisposed, and be as gay, neat-handed, watchful, and attentive a child as any old gentleman could desire.

She did not seem to be very sorry to part with mamma, a want of feeling which that lady bitterly deplored in her subsequent conversation with her friends about Mrs. Clive Newcome. Possibly there were reasons why Rosey should not be very much vexed at quitting mamma; but surely she might have dropped a little tear as she took leave of kind, good old James Binnie. Not she. The gentleman's voice faltered, but hers did not in the least. She kissed him on the face, all smiles, blushes, and happiness, and tripped into the railway carriage with her husband and father-in-law, leaving the poor old uncle very sad. Our women said, I know not why, that little Rosey had no heart at all. Women are accustomed to give such opinions respecting the wives of their newly married friends. I am bound to add (and I do so during Mr. Clive Newcome's absence from England, otherwise I should not like to venture upon the statement), that some men concur with the ladies' opinion of Mrs. Clive. For instance, Captains Goby and Hoby declare that her treatment of the latter, her encouragement, and desertion of him when Clive made his proposals, were shameful.

At this time Rosey was in a pupillary state. A good, obedient little girl, her duty was to obey the wishes of her dear mamma. How show her sense of virtue and obedience better than by promptly and cheerfully obeying mamma, and at the orders of that experienced Campaigner, giving up Bobby Hoby, and going to England to a fine house, to be presented at Court, to have all sorts of pleasure with a handsome young husband and a kind father-in-law by her side? No wonder Rosey was not in a very active state of grief at parting from Uncle James. He strove to console himself with these considerations when he had returned to the empty house, where she had danced, and smiled, and warbled; and he looked at the chair she sat in; and at the great mirror which had so often reflected her fresh pretty face;—the great callous mirror, which now only framed upon its shining sheet the turban, and the ringlets, and the plump person, and the resolute smile of the old Campaigner.

After that parting with her uncle at the Brussels railway, Rosey never again beheld him. He passed into the Campaigner's keeping, from which alone he was rescued by the summons of pallid death. He met that summons like a philosopher; rejected rather testily all the mortuary consolations which his nephew-in-law, Josey's husband, thought proper to bring to his bedside; and uttered opinions which scandalised that divine. But as he left Mrs. M'Craw only 500 pounds, thrice that sum to his sister, and the remainder of his property to his beloved niece, Rosa Mackenzie, now Rosa Newcome, let us trust that Mr. M'Craw, hurt and angry at the ill-favour shown to his wife, his third young wife, his best-beloved Josey, at the impatience with which the deceased had always received his, Mr. M'Craw's, own sermons;—let us hope, I say, that the reverend gentleman was mistaken in his views respecting the present position of Mr. James Binnie's soul; and that Heaven may have some regions yet accessible to James, which Mr. M'Craw's intellect has not yet explored. Look, gentlemen! Does a week pass without the announcement of the discovery of a new comet in the sky, a new star in the heaven, twinkling dimly out of a yet farther distance, and only now becoming visible to human ken though existent for ever and ever? So let us hope divine truths may be shining, and regions of light and love extant, which Geneva glasses cannot yet perceive, and are beyond the focus of Roman telescopes.

I think Clive and the Colonel were more affected by the news of James's death than Rosey, concerning whose wonderful strength of mind good Thomas Newcome discoursed to my Laura and me, when, fancying that my friend's wife needed comfort and consolation, Mrs. Pendennis went to visit her. "Of course we shall have no more parties this year," sighed Rosey. She looked very pretty in her black dress. Clive, in his hearty way, said a hundred kind feeling things about the departed friend. Thomas Newcome's recollections of him, and regret, were no less tender and sincere. "See," says he, "how that dear child's sense of duty makes her hide her feelings! Her grief is most deep, but she wears a calm countenance. I see her looking sad in private, but I no sooner speak than she smiles." "I think," said Laura, as we came away, "that Colonel Newcome performs all the courtship part in the marriage, and Clive, poor Clive, though he spoke very nobly and generously about Mr. Binnie, I am sure it is not his old friend's death merely, which makes him so unhappy."

Poor Clive, by right of his wife, was now rich Clive; the little lady having inherited from her kind relative no inconsiderable sum of money. In a very early part of this story, mention has been made of a small sum producing one hundred pounds a year, which Clive's father had made over to the lad when he sent him from India. This little sum Mr. Clive had settled upon his wife before his marriage, being indeed all he had of his own; for the famous bank shares which his father presented to him, were only made over formally when the young man came to London after his marriage, and at the paternal request and order appeared as a most inefficient director of the B. B. C. Now Mrs. Newcome, of her inheritance, possessed not only B. B. C. shares, but moneys in bank, and shares in East India Stock, so that Clive in the right of his wife had a seat in the assembly of East India shareholders, and a voice in the election of directors of that famous company. I promise you Mrs. Clive was a personage of no little importance. She carried her little head with an aplomb and gravity which amused some of us. F. B. bent his most respectfully down before her; she sent him on messages, and deigned to ask him to dinner. He once more wore a cheerful countenance; the clouds which gathered o'er the sun of Newcome were in the bosom of the ocean buried, Bayham said, by James Binnie's brilliant behaviour to his niece.

Clive was a proprietor of East India Stock, and had a vote in electing the directors of that Company; and who so fit to be a director of his affairs as Thomas Newcome, Esq., Companion of the Bath, and so long a distinguished officer in its army? To hold this position of director, used, up to very late days, to be the natural ambition of many East Indian gentlemen. Colonel Newcome had often thought of offering himself as a candidate, and now openly placed himself on the lists, and publicly announced his intention. His interest was rather powerful through the Indian bank, of which he was a director, and many of the shareholders of which were proprietors of the East India Company. To have a director of the B. B. C. also a member of the parliament in Leadenhall Street, would naturally be beneficial to the former institution. Thomas Newcome's prospectuses were issued accordingly, and his canvass received with tolerable favour.

Within a very short time another candidate appeared in the field—a retired Bombay lawyer, of considerable repute and large means—and at the head of this gentleman's committee appeared the names of Hobson Brothers and Newcome, very formidable personages at the East India House, with which the bank of Hobson Brothers have had dealings for half a century past, and where the old lady, who founded or consolidated that family, had had three stars before her own venerable name, which had descended upon her son Sir Brian, and her grandson, Sir Barnes.

War was thus openly declared between Thomas Newcome and his nephew. The canvass on both sides was very hot and eager. The number of promises was pretty equal. The election was not to come off yet for a while; for aspirants to the honourable office of director used to announce their wishes years before they could be fulfilled, and returned again and again to the contest before they finally won it. Howbeit, the Colonel's prospects were very fair, and a prodigious indigo crop came in to favour the B. B. C., with the most brilliant report from the board at Calcutta. The shares, still somewhat sluggish, rose again, the Colonel's hopes with them, and the courage of gentlemen at home who had invested their money in the transaction.

We were sitting one day round the Colonel's dinner-table; it was not one of the cocoa-nut-tree days; that emblem was locked up in the butler's pantry, and only beheld the lamps on occasions of state. It was a snug family party in the early part of the year, When scarcely anybody was in town; only George Warrington, and F. B., and Mr. and Mrs. Pendennis; and the ladies having retired, We were having such a talk as we used to enjoy in quiet old days, before marriages and cares and divisions had separated us.

F. B. led the conversation. The Colonel received his remarks with great gravity, and thought him an instructive personage. Others considered him rather as amusing than instructive, and so his eloquence was generally welcome. The canvass for the directorship was talked over. The improved affairs of a certain great Banking Company, which shall be nameless, but one which F. B. would take the liberty to state, would, in his opinion, for ever unite the mother country to our great Indian possessions;—the prosperity of this great Company was enthusiastically drunk by Mr. Bayham in some of the very best claret. The conduct of the enemies of that Company was characterised in terms of bitter, but not undeserved, satire. F. B. rather liked to air his oratory, and neglected few opportunities for making speeches after dinners.

The Colonel admired his voice and sentiments not the less, perhaps, because the latter were highly laudatory of the good man. And not from interest, at least, as far as he himself knew—not from any mean or selfish motives, did F. B. speak. He called Colonel Newcome his friend, his benefactor: kissed the hem of his garment: he wished fervently that he could have been the Colonel's son: he expressed, repeatedly, a desire that some one would speak ill of the Colonel, so that he, F. B., might have the opportunity of polishing that individual off in about two seconds. He covered the Colonel with all his heart; nor is any gentleman proof altogether against this constant regard and devotion from another.

The Colonel used to wag his head wisely, and say Mr. Bayham's suggestions were often exceedingly valuable, as indeed the fact was, though his conduct was no more of a piece with his opinions than those of some other folks occasionally are.

"What the Colonel ought to do, sir, to help him in the direction," says F. B., "is to get into Parliament. The House of Commons would aid him into the Court of Directors, and the Court of Directors would help him in the House of Commons."

"Most wisely said," says Warrington.

The Colonel declined. "I have long had the House of Commons in my eye," he said; "but not for me. I wanted my boy to go there. It would be a proud day for me if I could see him there."

"I can't speak," says Clive, from his end of the table. "I don't understand about parties, like F. B. here."

"I believe I do know a thing or two," Mr. Bayham here interposes.

"And politics do not interest me in the least," Clive sighs out, drawing pictures with his fork on his napkin, and not heeding the other's interruption.

"I wish I knew what would interest him," his father whispers to me, who happened to be at his side. "He never cares to be out of his painting-room; and he doesn't seem to be very happy even in there. I wish to God, Pen, I knew what had come over the boy." I thought I knew; but what was the use of telling, now there was no remedy?

"A dissolution is expected every day," continued F. B. "The papers are full of it. Ministers cannot go on with this majority—cannot possibly go on, sir. I have it on the best authority; and men who are anxious about their seats are writing to their constituents, or are subscribing at missionary meetings, or are gone down to lecturing at Athenaeums, and that sort of thing."

Here Warrington burst out into a laughter much louder than the occasion of the speech of F. B. seemed to warrant; and the Colonel, turning round with some dignity, asked the cause of George's amusement.

"What do you think your darling, Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, has been doing during the recess?" cries Warrington. "I had a letter this morning, from my liberal and punctual employer, Thomas Potts, Esquire, of the Newcome Independent, who states, in language scarcely respectful, that Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome is trying to come the religious dodge, as Mr. Potts calls it. He professes to be stricken down by grief on account of late family circumstances; wears black, and puts on the most piteous aspect, and asks ministers of various denominations to tea with him; and the last announcement is the most stupendous of all. Stop, I have it in my greatcoat;" and, ringing the bell, George orders a servant to bring him a newspaper from his great-coat pocket. "Here it is, actually in print," Warrington continues, and reads to us:—"'Newcome Athenaeum. 1, for the benefit of the Newcome Orphan Children's Home, and 2, for the benefit of the Newcome Soup Association, without distinction of denomination. Sir Barnes Newcome Newcome, Bart., proposes to give two lectures, on Friday the 23rd, and Friday the 30th, instant. No. 1, The Poetry of Childhood: Doctor Watts, Mrs. Barbauld, Jane Taylor, No. 2, The Poetry of Womanhood, and the Affections: Mrs. Hemans, L. E. L. Threepence will be charged at the doors, which will go to the use of the above two admirable Societies.' Potts wants me to go down and hear him. He has an eye to business. He has had a quarrel with Sir Barnes, and wants me to go down and hear him, and smash him, he kindly says. Let us go down, Clive. You shall draw your cousin as you have drawn his villainous little mug a hundred times before; and I will do the smashing part, and we will have some fun out of the transaction."

"Besides, Florac will be in the country; going to Rosebury is a journey worth the taking, I can tell you; and we have old Mrs. Mason to go and see, who sighs after you, Colonel. My wife went to see her," remarks Mr. Pendennis, "and——"

"And Miss Newcome, I know," says the Colonel.

"She is away at Brighton, with her little charges, for sea air. My wife heard from her to-day."

"Oh, indeed. Mrs. Pendennis corresponds with her?" says our host, darkling under his eyebrows; and, at this moment, my neighbour, F. B., is kind enough to scrunch my foot under the table with the weight of his heel, as much as to warn me, by an appeal to my own corns, to avoid treading on so delicate a subject in that house. "Yes," said I, in spite, perhaps in consequence, of this interruption. "My wife does correspond with Miss Ethel, who is a noble creature, and whom those who know her know how to love and admire. She is very much changed since you knew her, Colonel Newcome; since the misfortunes in Sir Barnes's family, and the differences between you and him. Very much changed and very much improved. Ask my wife about her, who knows her most intimately, and hears from her constantly."

"Very likely, very likely," cried the Colonel, hurriedly, "I hope she is improved, with all my heart. I am sure there was room for it. Gentlemen, shall we go up to the ladies and have some coffee?" And herewith the colloquy ended, and the party ascended to the drawing-room.

The party ascended to the drawing-room, where no doubt both the ladies were pleased by the invasion which ended their talk. My wife and the Colonel talked apart, and I saw the latter looking gloomy, and the former pleading very eagerly, and using a great deal of action, as the little hands are wont to do, when the mistress's heart is very much moved. I was sure she was pleading Ethel's cause with her uncle.

So indeed she was. And Mr. George, too, knew what her thoughts were. "Look at her!" he said to me. "Don't you see what she is doing? She believes in that girl whom you all said Clive took a fancy to before he married his present little placid wife; a nice little simple creature, who is worth a dozen Ethels."

"Simple certainly," says Mr. P., with a shrug of the shoulders.

"A simpleton of twenty is better than a roue of twenty. It is better not to have thought at all, than to have thought such things as must go through a girl's mind whose life is passed in jilting and being jilted; whose eyes, as soon as they are opened, are turned to the main chance, and are taught to leer at earl, to languish at a marquis, and to grow blind before a commoner. I don't know much about fashionable life. Heaven help us (you young Brummell! I see the reproach in your face!) Why, sir, it absolutely appears to me as if this little hop-o'-my-thumb of a creature has begun to give herself airs since her marriage and her carriage. Do you know, I rather thought she patronised me? Are all women spoiled by their contact with the world, and their bloom rubbed off in the market? I know one who seems to me to remain pure! to be sure, I only know her, and this little person, and Mrs. Flanagan our laundress, and my sisters at home, who don't count. But that Miss Newcome to whom once you introduced me? Oh, the cockatrice! only that poison don't affect your wife, the other would kill her. I hope the Colonel will not believe a word which Laura says." And my wife's tete-a-tete with our host coming to an end about this time, Mr. Warrington in high spirits goes up to the ladies, recapitulates the news of Barnes's lecture, recites "How doth the little busy bee," and gives a quasi-satirical comment upon that well-known poem, which bewilders Mrs. Clive, until, set on by the laughter of the rest of the audience, she laughs very freely at that odd man, and calls him "you droll satirical creature you!" and says "she never was so much amused in her life. Were you, Mrs. Pendennis?"

Meanwhile Clive, who has been sitting apart moodily biting his nails, not listening to F. B.'s remarks, has broken into a laugh once or twice, and gone to a writing-book, on which, whilst George is still disserting, Clive is drawing.

At the end of the other's speech, F. B. goes up to the draughtsman, looks over his shoulder, makes one or two violent efforts as of inward convulsion, and finally explodes in an enormous guffaw. "It's capital! By Jove, it's capital! Sir Barnes would never dare to face his constituents with that picture of him hung up in Newcome!"

And F. B. holds up the drawing, at which we all laugh except Laura. As for the Colonel, he paces up and down the room, holding the sketch close to his eyes, holding it away from him, patting it, clapping his son delightedly on the shoulder. "Capital! capital! We'll have the picture printed, by Jove, sir; show vice it's own image; and shame the viper in his own nest, sir. That's what we will."

Mrs. Pendennis came away with rather a heavy heart from this party. She chose to interest herself about the right or wrong of her friends; and her mind was disturbed by the Colonel's vindictive spirit. On the subsequent day we had occasion to visit our friend J. J. (who was completing the sweetest little picture, No. 263 in the Exhibition, "Portrait of a Lady and Child"), and we found that Clive had been with the painter that morning likewise; and that J. J. was acquainted with his scheme. That he did not approve of it we could read in the artist's grave countenance. "Nor does Clive approve of it either!" cried Ridley, with greater eagerness than he usually displayed, and more openness than he was accustomed to exhibit in judging unfavourably of his friends.

"Among them they have taken him away from his art," Ridley said. "They don't understand him when he talks about it; they despise him for pursuing it. Why should I wonder at that? my parents despised it too, and my father was not a grand gentleman like the Colonel, Mrs. Pendennis. Ah! why did the Colonel ever grow rich? Why had not Clive to work for his bread as have? He would have done something that was worthy of him then; now his time must be spent in dancing attendance at balls land operas, and yawning at City board-rooms. They call that business: they think he is idling when he comes here, poor fellow! As if life was long enough for our art; and the best labour we can give, good enough for it! He went away groaning this morning, and quite saddened in spirits. The Colonel wants to set up himself for Parliament, or to set Clive up; but he says he won't. I hope he won't; do not you, Mrs. Pendennis?"

The painter turned as he spoke; and the bright northern light which fell upon the sitter's head was intercepted, and lighted up his own as he addressed us. Out of that bright light looked his pale thoughtful face, and long locks and eager brown eyes. The palette on his arm was a great shield painted of many colours: he carried his mall-stick and a sheaf of brushes along with the weapons of his glorious but harmless war. With these he achieves conquests, wherein none are wounded save the envious: with that he shelters him against how much idleness, ambition, temptations! Occupied over that consoling work, idle thoughts cannot gain mastery over him: selfish wishes or desires are kept at bay. Art is truth: and truth is religion: and its study and practice a daily work of pious duty. What are the world's struggles, brawls, successes, to that calm recluse pursuing his calling? See, twinkling in the darkness round his chamber, numberless beautiful trophies of the graceful victories which he has won:—sweet flowers of fancy reared by him:—kind shapes of beauty which he has devised and moulded. The world enters into the artist's studio, and scornfully bids him a price for his genius, or makes dull pretence to admire it. What know you of his art? You cannot read the alphabet of that sacred book, good old Thomas Newcome! What can you tell of its glories, joys, secrets, consolations? Between his two best-beloved mistresses, poor Clive's luckless father somehow interposes; and with sorrowful, even angry protests. In place of Art the Colonel brings him a ledger; and in lieu of first love, shows him Rosey.

No wonder that Clive hangs his head; rebels sometimes, desponds always: he has positively determined to refuse to stand for Newcome, Ridley says. Laura is glad of his refusal, and begins to think of him once more as of the Clive of old days.



CHAPTER LXVI. In which the Colonel and the Newcome Athenaeum are both lectured

At breakfast with his family, on the morning after the little entertainment to which we were bidden, in the last chapter, Colonel Newcome was full of the projected invasion of Barnes's territories, and delighted to think that there was an opportunity of at last humiliating that rascal.

"Clive does not think he is a rascal at all, papa," cries Rosey, from behind her tea-urn; "that is, you said you thought papa judged him too harshly; you know you did, this morning!" And from her husband's angry glances, she flies to his father's for protection. Those were even fiercer than Clive's. Revenge flashed from beneath Thomas Newcome's grizzled eyebrows, and glanced in the direction where Clive sat. Then the Colonel's face flushed up, and he cast his eyes down towards his tea-cup, which he lifted with a trembling hand. The father and son loved each other so, that each was afraid of the other. A war between two such men is dreadful; pretty little pink-faced Rosey, in a sweet little morning cap and ribbons, her pretty little fingers twinkling with a score of rings, sat simpering before her silver tea-urn, which reflected her pretty little pink baby face. Little artless creature! what did she know of the dreadful wounds which her little words inflicted in the one generous breast and the other?

"My boy's heart is gone from me," thinks poor Thomas Newcome; "our family is insulted, our enterprises ruined, by that traitor, and my son is not even angry! he does not care for the success of our plans—for the honour of our name even; I make him a position of which any young man in England might be proud, and Clive scarcely deigns to accept it."

"My wife appeals to my father," thinks poor Clive; "it is from him she asks counsel, and not from me. Be it about the ribbon in her cap, or any other transaction in our lives, she takes her colour from his opinion, and goes to him for advice, and I have to wait till it is given, and conform myself to it. If I differ from the dear old father, I wound him; if I yield up my opinion, as I do always, it is with a bad grace, and I wound him still. With the best intentions in the world, what a slave's life it is that he has made for me!"

"How interested you are in your papers!" resumes the sprightly nosey. "What can you find in those horrid politics?" Both gentlemen are looking at their papers with all their might, and no doubt cannot see one single word which those brilliant and witty leading articles contain.

"Clive is like you, Rosey," says the Colonel, laying his paper down, "and does not care for politics."

"He only cares for pictures, papa," says Mrs. Clive. "He would not drive with me yesterday in the Park, but spent hours in his room, while you were toiling in the City, poor papa!—spent hours painting a horrid beggar-man dressed up as a monk. And this morning, he got up quite early, quite early, and has been out ever so long, and only came in for breakfast just now! just before the bell rung."

"I like a ride before breakfast," says Clive.

"A ride! I know where you have been, sir! He goes away morning after morning, to that little Mr. Ridley's—his chums, papa, and he comes back with his hands all over horrid paint. He did this morning; you know you did, Clive."

"I did not keep any one waiting, Rosa," says Clive. "I like to have two or three hours at my painting when I can spare time." Indeed, the poor fellow used so to run away of summer meetings for Ridley's instructions, and gallop home again, so as to be in time for the family meal.

"Yes," cries Rosey, tossing up the cap and ribbons, "he gets up so early in the morning, that at night he falls asleep after dinner; very pleasant and polite, isn't he, papa?"

"I am up betimes too, my dear," says the Colonel (many and many a time he must have heard Clive as he left the house); "I have a great many letters to write, affairs of the greatest importance to examine and conduct. Mr. Betts from the City is often with me for hours before I come down to your breakfast-table. A man who has the affairs of such a great bank as ours to look to, must be up with the lark. We are all early risers in India."

"You dear kind papa!" says little Rosey, with unfeigned admiration; and she puts out one of the plump white little jewelled hands, and pats the lean brown paw of the Colonel which is nearest to her.

"Is Ridley's picture getting on well, Clive?" asks the Colonel, trying to interest himself about Ridley and his picture.

"Very well; it is beautiful; he has sold it for a great price; they must make him an Academician next year," replies Clive.

"A most industrious and meritorious young man; he deserves every honour that may happen to him," says the old soldier. "Rosa, my dear, it is time that you should ask Mr. Ridley to dinner, and Mr. Smee, and some of those gentlemen. We will drive this afternoon and see your portrait."

"Clive does not go to sleep after dinner when Mr. Ridley comes here," cries Rosa.

"No; I think it is my turn then," says the Colonel, with a glance of kindness. The anger has disappeared from under his brows; at that moment the menaced battle is postponed.

"And yet I know that it must come," says poor Clive, telling me the story as he hangs on my arm, and we pace through the Park. "The Colonel and I are walking on a mine, and that poor little wife of mine is perpetually flinging little shells to fire it. I sometimes wish it were blown up, and I were done for, Pen. I don't think my widow would break her heart about me. No; I have no right to say that; it's a shame to say that; she tries her very best to please me, poor little dear. It's the fault of my temper, perhaps, that she can't. But they neither understand me, don't you see? the Colonel can't help thinking I am a degraded being, because I am fond of painting. Still, dear old boy, he patronises Ridley; a man of genius, whom those sentries ought to salute, by Jove, sir, when he passes. Ridley patronised by an old officer of Indian dragoons, a little bit of a Rosey, and a fellow who is not fit to lay his palette for him! I want sometimes to ask J. J.'s pardon, after the Colonel has been talking to him in his confounded condescending way, uttering some awful bosh about the fine arts. Rosey follows him, and trips round J. J.'s studio, and pretends to admire, and says, 'How soft; how sweet!' recalling some of mamma-in-law's dreadful expressions, which make me shudder when I hear them. If my poor old father had a confidant into whose arm he could hook his own, and whom he could pester with his family griefs as I do you, the dear old boy would have his dreary story to tell too. I hate banks, bankers, Bundelcund, indigo, cotton, and the whole business. I go to that confounded board, and never hear one syllable that the fellows are talking about. I sit there because he wishes me to sit there; don't you think he sees that my heart is out of the business; that I would rather be at home in my painting-room? We don't understand each other, but we feel each other, as it were by instinct. Each thinks in his own way, but knows what the other is thinking. We fight mute battles, don't you see, and, our thoughts, though we don't express them, are perceptible to one another, and come out from our eyes, or pass out from us somehow, and meet, and fight, and strike, and wound."

Of course Clive's confidant saw how sore and unhappy the poor fellow was, and commiserated his fatal but natural condition. The little ills of life are the hardest to bear, as we all very well know. What would the possession of a hundred thousand a year, or fame, and the applause of one's countrymen, or the loveliest and best-beloved woman,—of any glory, and happiness, or good-fortune avail to a gentleman, for instance, who was allowed to enjoy them only with the condition of wearing a shoe with a couple of nails or sharp pebbles inside it? All fame and happiness would disappear, and plunge down that shoe. All life would rankle round those little nails. I strove, by such philosophic sedatives as confidants are wont to apply on these occasions, to soothe my poor friend's anger and pain; and I dare say the little nails hurt the patient just as much as before.

Clive pursued his lugubrious talk through the Park, and continued it as far as the modest-furnished house which we then occupied in the Pimlico region. It so happened that the Colonel and Mrs. Clive also called upon us that day, and found this culprit in Laura's drawing-room, when they entered it, descending out of that splendid barouche in which we have already shown Mrs. Clive to the public.

"He has not been here for months before; nor have you Rosa; nor have you, Colonel; though we have smothered our indignation, and been to dine with you, and to call, ever so many times!" cries Laura.

The Colonel pleaded his business engagements; Rosa, that little woman of the world, had a thousand calls to make, and who knows how much to do? since she came out. She had been to fetch papa, at Bays's, and the porter had told the Colonel that Mr. Clive and Mr. Pendennis had just left the club together.

"Clive scarcely ever drives with me," says Rosa; "papa almost always does."

"Rosey's is such a swell carriage, that I feel ashamed," says Clive.

"I don't understand you young men. I don't see why you need be ashamed to go on the Course with your wife in her carriage, Clive," remarks the Colonel.

"The Course! the Course is at Calcutta, papa!" cries Rosey. "We drive in the Park."

"We have a park at Barrackpore too, my dear," says papa.

"And he calls his grooms saices! He said he was going to send away a saice for being tipsy, and I did not know in the least what he could mean, Laura!"

"Mr. Newcome! you must go and drive on the Course with Rosa now; and the Colonel must sit and talk with me, whom he has not been to see for such a long time." Clive presently went off in state by Rosey's side, and then Laura showed Colonel Newcome his beautiful white Cashmere shawl round a successor of that little person who had first been wrapped in that web, now a stout young gentleman whose noise could be clearly heard in the upper regions.

"I wish you could come down with us, Arthur, upon our electioneering visit."

"That of which you were talking last night? Are you bent upon it?"

"Yes, I am determined on it."

Laura heard a child's cry at this moment, and left the room with a parting glance at her husband, who in fact had talked over the matter with Mrs. Pendennis, and agreed with her in opinion.

As the Colonel had opened the question, I ventured to make a respectful remonstrance against the scheme. Vindictiveness on the part of a man so simple and generous, so fair and noble in all his dealings as Thomas Newcome, appeared in my mind unworthy of him. Surely his kinsman had sorrow and humiliation enough already at home. Barnes's further punishment, we thought, might be left to time, to remorse, to the Judge of right and wrong; Who better understands than we can do, our causes and temptations towards evil actions, Who reserves the sentence for His own tribunal. But when angered, the best of us mistake our own motives, as we do those of the enemy who inflames us. What may be private revenge, we take to be indignant virtue and just revolt against wrong. The Colonel would not hear of counsels of moderation, such as I bore him from a sweet Christian pleader. "Remorse!" he cried out with a laugh, "that villain will never feel it until he is tied up and whipped at the cart's tail! Time change that rogue! Unless he is wholesomely punished, he will grow a greater scoundrel every year. I am inclined to think, sir," says he, his honest brows darkling as he looked towards me, "that you too are spoiled by this wicked world, and these heartless, fashionable, fine people. You wish to live well with the enemy, and with us too, Pendennis. It can't be. He who is not with us is against us. I very much fear, sir, that the women, the women, you understand, have been talking you over. Do not let us speak any more about this subject, for I don't wish that my son, and my son's old friend, should have a quarrel." His face became red, his voice quivered with agitation, and he looked with glances which I was pained to behold in those kind old eyes: not because his wrath and suspicion visited myself, but because an impartial witness, nay, a friend to Thomas Newcome in that family quarrel, I grieved to think that a generous heart was led astray, and to see a good man do wrong. So with no more thanks for his interference than a man usually gets who meddles in domestic strifes, the present luckless advocate ceased pleading.

To be sure, the Colonel and Clive had other advisers, who did not take the peaceful side. George Warrington was one of these; he was for war a l'outrance with Barnes Newcome; for keeping no terms with such a villain. He found a pleasure in hunting him, and whipping him. "Barnes ought to be punished," George said, "for his poor wife's misfortune; it was Barnes's infernal cruelty, wickedness, selfishness, which had driven her into misery and wrong." Mr. Warrington went down to Newcome, and was present at that lecture whereof mention has been made in a previous chapter. I am afraid his behaviour was very indecorous; he laughed at the pathetic allusions of the respected Member for Newcome; he sneered at the sublime passages; he wrote an awful critique in the Newcome Independent two days after, whereof the irony was so subtle, that half the readers of the paper mistook his grave scorn for respect, and his gibes for praise.

Clive, his father, and Frederick Bayham, their faithful aide-de-camp, were at Newcome likewise when Sir Barnes's oration was delivered. At first it was given out at Newcome that the Colonel visited the place for the purpose of seeing his dear old friend and pensioner, Mrs. Mason, who was now not long to enjoy his bounty, and so old, as scarcely to know her benefactor. Only after her sleep, or when the sun warmed her and the old wine with which he supplied her, was the good old woman able to recognise her Colonel. She mingled father and son together in her mind. A lady who now often came in to her, thought she was wandering in her talk, when the poor old woman spoke of a visit she had had from her boy; and then the attendant told Miss Newcome that such a visit had actually taken place, and that but yesterday Clive and his father had been in that room, and occupied the chair where she sat. "The young lady was taken quite ill, and seemed ready to faint almost," Mrs. Mason's servant and spokeswoman told Colonel Newcome when that gentleman arrived shortly after Ethel's departure, to see his old nurse. "Indeed! he was very sorry." The maid told many stories about Miss Newcome's goodness and charity; how she was constantly visiting the poor now; how she was for ever engaged in good works for the young, the sick, and the aged. She had had a dreadful misfortune in love; she was going to be married to a young marquis; richer even than Prince de Moncontour down at Rosebury; but it was all broke off on account of that dreadful affair at the Hall.

Was she very good to the poor? did she come often to see her grandfather's old friend? it was no more than she ought "to do," Colonel Newcome said; without, however, thinking fit to tell his informant that he had himself met his niece Ethel, five minutes before he had entered Mrs. Mason's door.

The poor thing was in discourse with Mr. Harris, the surgeon, and talking (as best she might, for no doubt the news which she had just heard had agitated her), talking about blankets, and arrowroot, wine, and medicaments for her poor, when she saw her uncle coming towards her. She tottered a step or two forwards to meet him; held both her hands out, and called his name; but he looked her sternly in the face, took off his hat and bowed, and passed on. He did not think fit to mention the meeting even to his son, Clive; but we may be sure Mr. Harris, the surgeon, spoke of the circumstance that night after the lecture, at the club, where a crowd of gentlemen were gathered together, smoking their cigars, and enjoying themselves according to their custom, and discussing Sir Barnes Newcome's performance.

According to established usage in such cases, our esteemed representative was received by the committee of the Newcome Athenaeum, assembled in their committee-room, and thence marshalled by the chairman and vice-chairman to his rostrum in the lecture-hall, round about which the magnates of the institution and the notabilities of the town were rallied on this public occasion. The Baronet came in some state from his own house, arriving at Newcome in his carriage with four horses, accompanied by my lady his mother, and Miss Ethel his beautiful sister, who now was mistress at the Hall. His little girl was brought—five years old now; she sate on her aunt's knee, and slept during a greater part of the performance. A fine bustle, we may be sure, was made on the introduction of these personages to their reserved seats on the platform, where they sate encompassed by others of the great ladies of Newcome, to whom they and the lecturer were especially gracious at this season. Was not Parliament about to be dissolved, and were not the folks at Newcome Park particularly civil at that interesting period? So Barnes Newcome mounts his pulpit, bows round to the crowded assembly in acknowledgment of their buzz of applause or recognition, passes his lily-white pocket-handkerchief across his thin lips, and dashes off into his lecture about Mrs. Hemans and the poetry of the affections. A public man, a commercial man as we well know, yet his heart is in his home, and his joy in his affections; the presence of this immense assembly here this evening; of the industrious capitalists; of the intelligent middle class; of the pride and mainstay of England, the operatives of Newcome; these, surrounded by their wives and their children (a graceful bow to the bonnets to the right of the platform), show that they too have hearts to feel, and homes to cherish; that they, too, feel the love of women, the innocence of children, the love of song! Our lecturer then makes a distinction between man's poetry and woman's poetry, charging considerably in favour of the latter. We show that to appeal to the affections is after all the true office of the bard; to decorate the homely threshold, to wreathe flowers round the domestic hearth, the delightful duty of the Christian singer. We glance at Mrs. Hemans's biography, and state where she was born, and under what circumstances she must have at first, etc. etc. Is this a correct account of Sir Barnes Newcome's lecture? I was not present, and did not read the report. Very likely the above may be a reminiscence of that mock lecture which Warrington delivered in anticipation of the Baronet's oration.

After he had read for about five minutes, it was remarked the Baronet suddenly stopped and became exceedingly confused over his manuscript: betaking himself to his auxiliary glass of water before he resumed his discourse, which for a long time was languid, low, and disturbed in tone. This period of disturbance, no doubt, must have occurred when Sir Barnes saw before him F. Bayham and Warrington seated in the amphitheatre; and, by the side of those fierce scornful countenances, Clive Newcome's pale face.

Clive Newcome was not looking at Barnes. His eyes were fixed upon the lady seated not far from the lecturer—upon Ethel, with her arm round her little niece's shoulder, and her thick black ringlets drooping down over a face paler than Clive's own.

Of course she knew that Clive was present. She was aware of him as she entered the hall; saw him at the very first moment; saw nothing but him, I dare say, though her eyes were shut and her head was turned now towards her mother, and now bent down on the little niece's golden curls. And the past and its dear histories, and youth and its hopes and passions, and tones and looks for ever echoing in the heart, and present in the memory—these, no doubt, poor Clive saw and heard as he looked across the great gulf of time, and parting, and grief, and beheld the woman he had loved for many years. There she sits; the same, but changed: as gone from him as if she were dead; departed indeed into another sphere, and entered into a kind of death. If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied. Strew round it the flowers of youth. Wash it with tears of passion. Wrap it and envelop it with fond devotion. Break heart, and fling yourself on the bier, and kiss her cold lips and press her hand! It falls back dead on the cold breast again. The beautiful lips have never a blush or a smile. Cover them and lay them in the ground, and so take thy hatband off, good friend, and go to thy business. Do you suppose you are the only man who has had to attend such a funeral? You will find some men smiling and at work the day after. Some come to the grave now and again out of the world, and say a brief prayer, and a "God bless her!" With some men, she gone, and her viduous mansion your heart to let, her successor, the new occupant, poking in all the drawers and corners, and cupboards of the tenement, finds her miniature and some of her dusty old letters hidden away somewhere, and says—Was this the face he admired so? Why, allowing even for the painter's flattery, it is quite ordinary, and the eyes certainly do not look straight. Are these the letters you thought so charming? Well, upon my word, I never read anything more commonplace in my life! See, here's a line half blotted out. Oh, I suppose she was crying then—some of her tears, idle tears—Hark, there is Barnes Newcome's eloquence still plapping on like water from a cistern—and our thoughts, where have they wandered? far away from the lecture—as far away as Clive's almost. And now the fountain ceases to trickle; the mouth from which issued that cool and limpid flux ceases to smile; the figure is seen to bow and retire; a buzz, a hum, a whisper, a scuffle, a meeting of bonnets and wagging of feathers and rustling of silks ensues. "Thank you! delightful, I am sure!" "I really was quite overcome;" "Excellent;" "So much obliged," are rapid phrases heard amongst the polite on the platform. While down below, "Yaw! quite enough of that;" "Mary Jane, cover your throat up, and don't kitch cold, and don't push me, please, sir;" "Arry! coom along and ave a pint a ale," etc., are the remarks heard, or perhaps not heard, by Clive Newcome, as he watches at the private entrance of the Athenaeum, where Sir Barnes's carriage is waiting with its flaming lamps, and domestics in state liveries. One of them comes out of the building bearing the little girl in his arms, and lays her in the carriage. Then Sir Barnes, and Lady Anne, and the Mayor; then Ethel issues forth, and as she passes under the lamps, beholds Clive's face as pale and sad as her own.